At your service

Natalie Kelly is no stranger to the world of payments. In more than 21 years at Visa, she has seen the ins and outs from product to sales or leading global go-to-market strategies. Since becoming Visa Europe’s Chief Risk Officer in March, Natalie has set her sights on demonstrating the role risk plays in enabling business growth.

“I think every day as humans we take risk, whether it's crossing the street or swiping right. And when you think about that, you're making decisions based on things that you're comfortable with. That's your risk appetite,” Natalie says. “The biggest misconception of risk is that risk prevents business growth, and in actuality, risk is business growth. We aim to optimise things at every level so businesses – Visa or our clients and partners – can grow fast, responsibly.”

I learned from the best

With 60 years of history in applying security to transactions, Visa has built capabilities that are difficult to rival.

“Whether it’s the cost or complications of managing legacy systems, from a small fintech to the world’s largest banks, Visa is bringing to bear that wealth of experience and investment to help their businesses – and their clients’ businesses – to grow.”

“If we look at how the world of payments has advanced just in the past 20 years and look to the future, I think we're actually in a really cool spot because we're in the intersection of the physical world and the virtual world and consumers are always going to want a fast, easy, secure way to pay.

“If you think how quickly things are moving, there’s a great benefit to be able to draw on Visa’s expertise for risk and it’s a service that doesn’t require integration with existing systems. That’s traditionally been the blocker to taking advantage of these tools. Technology has not only helped improve the payment experience, Risk-as-a-Service means businesses have better access to tools that can help them grow.”

A token of our appreciation

Tokenisation is really one of the foundations of this transformation. “It’s like Chip for the Internet, and it allows consumers a secure way to pay.”

For businesses, tokenisation not only provides an extra layer of protection for their customers, but it can also help to increase authorisations. Visa’s data in Europe shows the average authorisation rate using tokens is 95.9% while the average rate for PANs is 90.8%¹.

Adyen recently showed how their use of token and 3D secure (3DS) helps businesses streamline their online checkout experience and enjoy greater levels of efficiency, fraud protection and transaction success². In the case of Bolt, a leading mobility super-app, this has powered exceptional consumer and merchant outcomes, from frictionless payment journeys to more holistic data insights across verticals, sales channels and regions.

“The building blocks are not only in place, they’re firmly established,” says Natalie.

“And as businesses increase their reliance on risk to help them build for the future, I hope we will see not only improved growth, but a more resilient ecosystem that benefits everyone.”